The invention relates to delivery of weather product information to the cockpit of an aircraft and in particular to providing weather data on an aircraft cockpit display.
Commercial aircraft operating in United States air space have on-board weather radar systems. Existing on-board weather radar systems provide data to the crew on weather near the aircraft, for example, weather ahead of the aircraft within the range of the weather radar unit. The weather information is displayed on a cockpit weather display. However, the weather data collected by an aircraft is available only to the particular aircraft experiencing the weather. The data is not transferable to the ground or to other aircraft. Thus, today, weather information displayed on on-board cockpit displays is limited to the weather returns supplied by the on-board weather radar.
Visual depictions and bounding of significant hazardous weather areas outside the range of an on-board weather radar system on a cockpit display would be a significant operational tool for the aircraft crew.
This system is for displaying graphically to a flight crew the atmospheric conditions and potential threats at any location on the planet, regardless of their aircraft""s current position and direction. This invention is a variation of an idea that has been tried unsuccessfully by others in the past. The basic idea is to portray atmospheric conditions (generally, severe weather) to a flight crew. The display tries to show conditions from a point of view other than what the pilot can see out the window and to show them long before the aircraft encounters them. The purpose is to give the crew sufficient information early enough to be able to make informed decisions about minimizing encounters with severe weather.
The system is interactive and tailored, not just a general broadcast. The system can be fitted to commercial aircraft cockpits with minimal time and expense. The system can work effectively using just the communications bandwidth currently available. The system is not just a passive indicator, it actively monitors for threats and alerts the crew when potential threats are detected. This system turns the hundreds of commercial aircraft aloft into remote sensors for a real-time world-wide weather measurement system. Because information is collected from multiple platforms, the present invention provides a method of converting all data to a common reference system, and provides a method to quantify and track errors caused by position error or spurious data. Also, because the transmission of raw weather data consumes large amounts of bandwidth, the invention describes various methods of data selection and compression of downlinked and uplinked weather information.
The synthetic weather display invention is a natural extension of the synthetic terrain display ability described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,839,080, xe2x80x9cTerrain Awareness Systemxe2x80x9d. There are three keys to making this idea into practical reality. First, the system must work with the existing world-wide aircraft communications network and be tolerant of the poor performance of that network. A truly effective design takes full advantage of the broad array of communication paths available to get cost-effective world-wide coverage. Second, the data to be portrayed must be radically compressed and encoded. Uplinking massive bit images is not cost-effective today. Third, to get maximum benefit the display algorithm must be intelligent and flexible. It needs not only to provide information to the pilot on demand, but also to constantly monitor conditions in the background and bring potential threats to the pilot""s attention. Maximizing the benefits to the crew increases subscribership, which increases the amount of raw data coming into the system, which increases its utility. Increased use also lowers the share of overhead cost for each user.
The present invention resolves significant problems of the prior art by providing an aircraft weather information system wherein weather information is provided to the aircraft from various sources external to the aircraft in a timely and cost-effective manner.
According to one aspect of the invention, data generated by existing on-board sensors is downlinked to a central ground station. Similarly, existing picture generating and display equipment to used to process and display uplinked data. Accordingly, the invention can be utilized without extensive modification to standard equipment already installed on the aircraft.
According to one aspect of the invention, weather data assembled on the ground is up-linked to an aircraft for display on a cockpit display device, for example, a weather radar display or an electronic flight information system (EFIS) display. According to another aspect of the invention, local atmospheric data collected by aircraft weather radar systems and other aircraft sensors, including actual aircraft accelerations and other flight data; altitude; and position are down-linked to a ground station. The down-linked data are assembled with other weather information and an up-to-date atmospheric model is developed. Weather products based on the up-to-date atmospheric model are up-linked to aircraft and displayed in the cockpit. According to yet another aspect of the invention, the up-linked weather products are displayed upon command, depicted as bounded polygons on the cockpit display. The graphic weather displays are configured such that the dynamic behavior of weather phenomena, such as growth, movement, and decay of weather, is readily apparent to the crew.
Another aspect of the invention is interactive features that reduce the crew workload in weather monitoring, The system can be configured by crew or ground operations to automatically alert the crew to selected weather threats, such as turbulent conditions or thunderstorm activity. In addition, the system is configurable such that tailored weather information can be transmitted based on aircraft position or flight plan. Destination weather can be up-loaded for crew viewing as well. Such features allow weather information to be integrated into real-time flight planning decisions.
Other advantages and features of the invention will be apparent in view of the following detailed description and appended drawings.